How to argue against a particular delusion.

A friend of mine is a pretty die-hard Christian (shock horror, both of his parents are missionaries/vicars) and he often posts little sayings of some kind or another on Facebook, which I usually ignore. However, today he posted something that really irritated me for some reason:

"The more I look at science, the more in awe of God I become."

And just to make that worse, one of his Christian friends commented "Boom" as if he had made some kind of infallible argument. Somehow, I feel as though nothing I say will make any difference because they must be incredibly deluded already to believe that God just "invented" science. Basically, this is the guy who thinks he's a "modern and intelligent" Christian by saying that things like Noah's Ark are "just stories and aren't meant to be taken seriously by Christians". But if that is true, then why take ANY of the Bible seriously and where does he draw the line between stories and (what he believes is) the truth?

In the past I asked him and his friend where the evidence was. He claimed science (yes, seriously) helped prove Christianity and that Christianity was about "opening yourself" to it and believing, and then you "feel God" or whatever. How do you argue with someone like that??

What do you all say to religious people (not necessarily just Christians) who claim that science is just an invention of God? Is there a specific way to argue with someone who twists everything to awkwardly suit modern day thinking?

The sharpest tool in the human toolkit is (Christopher) Hitchens' Razor: that which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. The whole of religion falls, promptly, once you allow yourself to wield this simple tool.

Your friends are unlikely to find this compelling, however, because it does not resonate with their dogma. That should not stop you from picking up this tool anytime it's appropriate.

I'd say be glad he's doing that. The more christians that get that way the more it shows that they are in mass retreat to science. It's a last ditch effort to justify beliefs that become more absurd every day. First comes 'well the flood story isn't real' to more and more backpedaling. The more absurdity is pointed out, they either go to lala land like this friend, or they snap out of it. Or do the first and then finally the second. Also, some people just cannot be reasoned with, the psychological benefit is too strong. As evolved as we have become currently, people still do irrational things on a day to day and minute to minute basis. A really inane example is identify faces in inanimate objects like clouds and rocks.

"I was just about to spread the butter when I noticed a small hole in the middle of the bread surrounded by a burnt black ring," said Chapman. "Then I saw the direction and splatter patterns of the crumbs - they were flowing outward from the center of a black hole, changing shades as their distance from the center grew. A perfect match to the chaotic-dynamic non-linear patterns that followed the Big-Bang. It's the beginning of the world - right there in my breakfast!"

This was a satirical site mocking the Jesus toast reports, that Gallup's Mirror linked us to on another thread. I think we should promulgate the perspective!

We've actually evolved the ability to recognize faces wherever we look. There's a specific part of the brain that does this. Notice how the faces we see are always the right way up and never upside down, that's because we cannot recognize facial features when they are upside down.

It's very interesting, so that's just my pointless 2 cents into this conversation.